A running board as an automobile accessory part provides stepping assistance when people enter or exit. With the continuous development of the automobile industry, the running board as an automobile accessory part also requires continuous development of new technologies to meet the needs of the market.
Currently, the running board more commonly used in the market is a stainless steel tube type, the production processes of which are as follows:
1) forming a metal band being used as a stainless steel material of the load-bearing member into a tubular shape by a tube making machine;
2) welding a slot formed in the tubular body, and grinding a welding line;
3) performing a first time cutting of the steel tube;
4) performing a second time cutting of the steel tube;
5) manually making mounting holes and screw holes for the connecting piece;
6) welding two end sealing members onto the steel tube and grinding the welding lines;
7) inspecting quality;
8) manual polishing (polished by sand→polished by linen→polished by cloth wheel);
9) inspecting polishing quality;
10) mounting a connecting rivet nut;
11) mounting a plastic anti-slip plate; and
12) packaging a finished product.
However, such processes may have the following problems:
1) The exhaust gas and the waste water produced during the processes of profiling, welding and grinding the welding line pollute the environment seriously.
2) Since each type of running board is designed for only one vehicle model, which results in a poor versatility, various running board designs are used, which results in high costs for production management, storage and transportation, and is also prone to cause product overstocking.
3) A welding process is employed for the slot of the tube and the sealings at two ends of the stainless steel tube, and the welding portion needs to be polished smoothly before welding, thus increasing the processing and time costs.
4) Since the tubular load-bearing member is difficult to be mechanical-automatically polished and punched during the production processes, the polishing is performed manually and the holes have to be manually drilled. These processes require a worker to have a high proficiency, otherwise a poorer quality, a high defective rate, or a long processing time will happen, and a demand for additional manual inspection will increase the cost.
5) The whole production process has many steps, leading to a long production cycle and requiring many production apparatuses, resulting in a large production area.
6) It is necessary to cut the material of a larger size gradually into pieces of a smaller size because of the need to produce a variety of specifications of products, which results in a waste of material.
7) The load-bearing capacity of the tubular structure of the load-bearing member is poorer, and it is easily deformed, which leads to a production difficulty during the production process.